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The Effects of Plastic Bottles

Plastic bottles are used across the world for everything from baby milk to fizzy drink containers, with the U.S. alone using some 2.5 million plastic bottles per hour, according to the Recycling Revolution website. Many of these are used for bottled water, which has increased in popularity during the 21st century, as noted by the Science Line website. Plastic bottles have benefits, but have also triggered concerns about negative effects connected to health and the environment.

Keep Contents Secure
- Plastic bottles help to protect their contents, being a durable material. As noted by the Waste Online website, plastic bottles offer protection from impact damage, as well as from water and chemicals which might contaminate the contents of the bottle. Plastic also has thermal insulation properties, helping to keep contents cold.
Suspected Health Risks
- A chemical often found in reusable plastic water bottles, known as Bisphenol A, or BPA for short, is suspected of posing a health risk to humans. BPA is a man-made chemical, which interferes with the body's working order by posing as a hormone and affecting the body's endocrine system. In tests on animals, scientists have proven that even tiny doses of BPA can have adverse effects on animal patients, as described by the Science Daily website. It has been suggested, but not accepted as hard fact, that BPA might be linked to illnesses such as cancer, diabetes and immune system problems, as described by the Ecology Center website.
Uses Oil
- Producing plastic bottles requires the use of oil, a fossil fuel which is nonrenewable. According to the Science Line website, 29 billion plastic water bottles are manufactured per year in the U.S. alone . This means that a huge amount of oil is being used to produce these bottles; around 17 million barrels of crude oil, as noted by the Science Line website. As oil is depleted, the price of this resource rises. The use of this fossil fuel also has consequences for the environment, since the burning of oil releases harmful carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.
Contributions To Landfill
- While plastic bottle recycling operations are in effect, many bottles still end up being thrown away and contribute to landfill sites, which creates a pollutant. For instance, as little as 10 percent of plastic water bottles used in the U.S. are recycled, according to the SNV Plastics website in 2007. The other plastic bottles take up valuable room on landfill sites and won't decompose for at least 1,000 years.

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